Founded in San Francisco in 1947 by Remi Boncœur, Sal Paradise, and Dean Moriarty, the organization that would become the Silver Lake Badminton and Adventurers Club was originally intended to foster team building and leadership skills amongst intrepid young adventurers through the ancient sport of Badminton. Headquartered in the Mission, the club boasted amongst its members, Brick Bradford, known
for his long toss, shorthand, and jetpack. Finally, there was legendary Tom Joad, who it was reputed, could handle a shuttlecock with more finesse than any player in the greater United States. Badminton appealed to the sporting mentalities of these founding members, but the exclusivity of shuttlecocks did not quench their thirst for the true bones of America. The answer came in the form of a murder, a murder that the adventurers followed down the coast. Rumors had spread up from a town in Mexico about a man, who, on a bet, shot an apple perched atop a shot glass from his lover’s head. He’d hit the apple clean in the center, but before the smoke cleared from his pistol, there was a knife in his back, and the girl was gone. Mexican authorities called it a victimless crime, ate the apple, and buried the body without ceremony under a saguaro cactus. Dean heard from dock workers in San Francisco that the girl was camped out in a Los Angeles bodega, selling sacramental wine to poets and smoking long ci******es. It is rumored that it was the newest member of the club, Carlo Marx, that compelled the group to investigate. He had a vision in the supermarket that night in which Whitman Whitman, clad only in apple peels and a smile, told him to follow the girl. Once the Badminton and Adventurers club reconvened in Silver Lake, it was obvious to even passersby that something miraculous had happened. With birdies on the beaches of Santa Monica, and jaunty roller skate gumshoeing, the group was really making a name for itself. Sadly, the mysterious woman that brought them to Southern California was never found and the death of Old Bull Lee was never avenged. But, from the ashes of a moderate tragedy, the Silver Lake Badminton and Adventurers Club was born.
